The minutes were endless before nine o’clock, but the seconds seemed like hours after nine. At quarter past nine, I felt every muscle go into full freeze. In the darkness on the far side of the street, I saw a deeper darkness that took the shape of a black sedan moving at a creep with no running lights. It passed without stopping and continued down the street.
I whispered to the McKedricks, “It’s time. Come on. Just exactly the way I told you. Most important. Not a word out of either of you. No matter what. I do the talking.”
I waited until I saw the same black shadow return from down the street and stop just beyond the driveway. I saw a sole figure get out of the car. I was betting that Markov would come alone. He had nothing to fear from the McKedricks, and I doubted that he wanted another living soul to hear what he was there for.
I opened the front door and stood back in the darkness while I ushered Mr. and Mrs. McKedrick out the door into the circle of light thrown by lamps on either side of the door. They stopped according to my directions at the top of the three front steps and looked as if they were scared out of their wits. I knew that would give Markov the sense of control of the situation.
I let his footsteps approach to within fifteen feet before stepping out onto the front landing beside them. He stopped where he was. It was a slight jolt to his anticipation, but he quickly regained the dominating attitude. The light caught the barrel of the Austrian Glock in his right hand.
“Mr. Knight, I should have known you couldn’t keep out of this. You McKedricks, who else did you tell?”
Mr. McKedrick leaped in with an answer. “No one. I swear.”
I hoped my right hand was hidden behind Mr. McKedrick’s back when I gave him a smack between the shoulder blades, soft enough to prevent him from leaping, but firm enough to remind him that he did not have a speaking part in this scene.
“They told no one else, Markov. This is not something they want made public.”
“That had better be true, Mr. Knight. I’m actually glad to see you. We have a score to settle. But one thing at a time. How much money did you people bring?”
My hand rested on Mr. McKedrick’s back like a hand puppet, just in case he became loquacious again.
“I can answer that, Markov. Not a dime.”
That brought a pause, which was good. It also brought a raising of the Glock to a firing angle, which was not good.
“I think you better explain that.”
“Certainly. Not a dime means you don’t get one damn cent.”
His eyes focused on me, but he could pick off the three of us in rapid-fire succession. My comfort level was descending rapidly.
I could see Markov becoming more agitated.
“You people are being sadly misled by this lawyer. This is not a negotiation. There is no bargaining. Once more. You will listen carefully. One of you will go into that house. You will return immediately with enough money to convince me not to fire a bullet into the heart of the other.”
I grabbed the back of the shirt of Mr. McKedrick. It was now soaked with perspiration in twenty-degree weather. He started to speak. I tightened my grip until he just stood with his mouth open.
Mrs. McKedrick was sobbing uncontrollably. It was heart wrenching to feel her pain, but I knew at least that she couldn’t speak.
I raised my voice to be sure to carry to the woods across the street. “There’s nothing here for you, Markov. This is your last chance to leave these people alone.”
He raised the gun to shoulder height and aimed directly at Mrs. McKedrick’s heart. “Say good-bye to your bride, Mr. McKedrick.”
I saw his finger begin to tighten inside the trigger guard. Why in God’s name did I tell Tom to wait until the last instant?
I knew I had waited too long, but I let instinct or panic dictate one last futile move. I used the grip I had on Mr. McKedrick’s shirt to drive him sideways into Mrs. McKedrick. They both tumbled headlong onto the landing, as a gunshot louder than anything I had ever heard concussed in my eardrum.
I landed on top of them and just held them both down under me. When a stillness followed, I looked up at Markov to prepare for the next blast of the Glock.
He was not there. I waited for my eyes to begin to adjust before I could see Markov’s body splayed across the lawn on his back.
On his back. He fell backward, not forward. The shot came from in front of him. It had to come from inside the house.
I crawled slowly to my feet with my eye on Markov. As I got closer, I could see by the position of his body that he was dead.
The danger had come to a sudden halt, but now it was my turn to feel sweat running down my back. I knew now that my theory had proven true. The very thought of what I was seeing exposed was making my knees buckle.
While Mr. and Mrs. McKedrick helped each other to their feet, I walked back into the circle of light on the porch that made everything in the dark inside the open door to the house invisible. I didn’t need to see inside. I knew to the very bottom of my heart who was there.
From where I stood, I forced the only two words I could utter through constricted vocal chords.
“Hello, John.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
I stood frozen to the spot for what seemed like a lifetime before I heard the voice that I thought I’d never hear again.
“Hello, Mike.”
The figure that walked slowly through the door into the light had John McKedrick’s face and body, but I had to touch him to be sure he was substance and not spirit.
It was the strangest moment of my life. Ever since that Friday intended rendezvous for dinner, if anyone had asked what I’d give to have my friend John standing in front of me, I’d have said, “Anything.” Now here he was, and my mind and heart were tugged in a dozen different directions.
My sense of rejoicing was dampened by feelings of anger for the pain of mourning that he had put me through and, I suppose, hurt pride for the lack of trust he had shown in not letting me in on his little secret.
There was no time for sorting out all of the conflicting feelings, many of which I was not proud of. They were finally all submerged under one overwhelming realization. John McKedrick was standing in front of me. It must have hit us both at the same moment, because I suddenly found that we had our arms around each other. I was gripping a friend that I thought was gone forever. I held on as if I could prevent ever losing his presence and friendship again, and neither of us could stop the flow of tears.
We let the moment last, because we both knew that there were things to be done that couldn’t wait, things that might mean that the old closeness would never go back to the way it was before.
Most immediately, we helped John’s parents into the house. We needed to talk before the outside world intruded, and there was no better place than the McKedrick kitchen.
Whatever else needed explaining, there was one burning question that I couldn’t postpone. “John, what happened that Friday?”
He pulled his kitchen chair up closer to me. “Mike, the most painful part of this whole thing was having to let you think I was dead. I wanted so much to let you in on it, but I really believed you’d be safer if you didn’t know.”
I could see him looking closely at the mostly healed scars on my face from the bombing, and I could read the pain in his eyes.
“If I’d known that you’d be injured, I’d never—”
“I’m good as new, John.”
He smiled, but his eyes were still full of regret.
“Tell me about it, John. We don’t have much time. Your old buddy, Markov, is still decorating the front lawn. We have to call the police, but I need to know some things first. What happened that Friday night?”
He leaned back to collect his thoughts. When he spoke, I knew that every word was the gospel truth.
“I need to put it in context, Mike. You’ve been right for years. The longer I stayed with Benny Ignola, the dirtier it made me. I could feel myself slipping into that slime. I be
gan to hate myself for it. Every time you told me to get out, I knew I had to do it. The problem was how? I spoke to Benny about getting out. He said he’d ask Tony Aiello. He came back and said Tony told him that if I wanted out, there was only one way. A trip to the bottom of Boston Harbor. I knew where too many bodies were buried and who buried them. It made sense, Mike. It’s all business. That meant I had to find my own way out.”
“Which was?”
“I had a connection with Markov and the two Dutch financiers you met in Amsterdam. Aiello had me dealing in diamonds over there that he’d smuggle into the United States. I knew Aiello was planning to take over the family from Dominic Santangelo. His problem was that he couldn’t kill the head of the Boston family without the permission of the heads of the other families. The so-called Commission. He had to convince them that he could make more money than Santangelo.
“That’s when I came up with the idea of using a Vermeer painting as security to enable Aiello to borrow a lot of money from the Dutch financiers. Aiello could use the money to double his business in drugs and all the rest of it. That would impress the Commission.”
He saw the wave of disgust that must have passed through my eyes when I heard the dirtiest word in the English language — drugs.
“Hold on, Mike. Hear the rest of the story. Aiello would never see the money. I pretended that I was still representing him. I got our old Professor Denisovitch to paint a copy of the Vermeer that had been stolen from a Boston museum. He could authenticate it as a genuine Vermeer. The Dutch financiers were willing to loan Aiello money on that security.”
“That much I know.”
“All right, Mike, here’s what you may not know. When it came time to transfer the borrowed funds from the Dutch to Aiello’s account, I just had to give them the number of my own account instead of Aiello’s. They didn’t suspect anything. Seventy million dollars was transferred electronically into my account in a foreign bank. Aiello never got a dime of it. That was my ticket out. Then I had to disappear in a way that would prevent Aiello from coming after me. He has contacts all over the world.”
“And the way to do that was to fake your own death.”
“I needed a witness that was believable. That’s why I had you meet me in the parking garage. I know now I should have told you what was happening.”
“Why didn’t you, John? You and I were like brothers. You couldn’t trust me?”
John shook his head.
“It wasn’t that. Believe me, Mike. I knew there’d be hell to pay when I disappeared and Aiello was stuck with a debt for borrowed money he never got — and couldn’t repay. I really thought you’d be safer if you weren’t in on the deception.”
I had to think that one over, with precious little time to do it. My first conclusion was that I disagreed with John on his decision not to take me aboard, but I also couldn’t doubt his sincerity in thinking I’d be safer on the outside.
“How did you pull it off, John? All I remember is walking toward your car.”
“I had one of the Mafia hoods who was supposed to be good at that sort of thing rig the car. He put a protective plate in front of the driver’s seat. He told me to open the door and jump just as I turned the key. That part worked out. What didn’t work out was that the force of the blast went through the front grill and hit you. I never dreamed anything like that would happen. I never even knew you were injured. As soon as I was out of the car, I was picked up in another car and out of there. I didn’t hear about your injury until the following week.”
My mind was racing to put together John’s version with what little I remembered of that day.
“So who was in on it, John?”
“I worked all that week to put it together. The only ones I told were the man who rigged the bomb, the pick-up driver, the boys in the ambulance. I had them standing by at the entrance to the garage so they’d be the first on the scene. Who else? Matt Magarrity at the funeral home. Oh, and that garage attendant who was watching when you came into the garage. He signaled the ambulance and hustled me into it right after the explosion. That was it, with the exception of my parents. I had to tell them.”
“And whose body did you use.”
“No one’s. There was no body. You remember the whole thing was run with a closed casket, supposedly because of the injuries.”
“How did you get these people to go along?”
“Money. Remember, I had Aiello’s money at that point. They were acquaintances to start with, but they were also well paid.”
Since John had raised the subject, I satisfied another curiosity.
“What about the money, John?”
“Ah, now there’s a subject. If I gave it back, whom would I give it to? Tony Aiello? What would he use it for? To flood the city with more drugs. Should I give it back to the Dutch financiers? They’d loan it out to someone else to build a criminal empire. They keep their own hands clean, but they finance some of the worst scourges on earth. No, Michael, I don’t think so. You know, as I look back on my life defending Benny Ignola’s clients, the loansharks, the drug pushers, the pimps, I can say to myself in all honesty that because of my existence the world is worse off. Now I’ve got the time and the means to change that. I’m going to find the places in the world where it’ll do the most good without it being detoured into the pockets of corrupt politicians. That’s going to be my life.”
Time was really getting short now. The police had to be called before a suspicious amount of time lapsed after the shooting of Markov. But I still had two questions that needed answers no matter what.
“John, I have to know this. You know that Mr. Devlin and I got mixed up in this when Peter Santangelo was indicted for your murder.”
“I know, Mike. That came out of left field. That was Aiello. He saw the chance to make Santangelo look bad before the Commission. The last thing those boys want is the notoriety of killing a lawyer in a pubic place. If he could hang it on Peter, it would look as if Mr. Santangelo couldn’t even control his own son. That was the reason for the frame-up. He got Three-Finger Simone to confess to the bombing and cut a deal with the D.A. by fingering Peter. You know our crusading district attorney. She’d cut a deal with Jack the Ripper if it would get her a headline prosecution.”
“So it seems, John. Now to my last question. In all of this mess, thank God, I’ve had a guardian angel. One with a gun. First when Vito Respa came after me up in Rockport. Then again when Aiello’s men had me trapped on Charles Street. Then again tonight. Unbelievable as it seemed, I’ve been getting this creeping suspicion that you’ve been my angel all three times.”
I looked into his eyes that for the first time seemed to have lost the tinge of guilt. I thought I saw the beginnings of a smile.
He looked down at the table and spoke in a low voice.
“Mike, I’ve been ashamed of most of what I’ve done since I joined Benny years ago. I needed to make this break, and I swear to you I couldn’t see any other way out. That doesn’t mean I was proud of it. But I’ll say this. The money I took has given me the ability to assemble a network of people to work for me who’ve been my eyes and ears — and my hands when it was necessary. I gave the orders, but they’re the ones you can thank. It may have been unorthodox, but thank God you’re alive here tonight. When did you know?”
“When I realized that there was no one else in the world who cared about me enough to commit murder to save my life.”
He started to say something, but it wouldn’t come out. He used his hand to wipe something out of his eyes and reached over to squeeze my arm. I put my hand on top of his.
“I didn’t think I’d ever get to thank you, John.”
He just shook as head, and I knew what he meant.
I leaned closer to his ear. “Just one more question, John.”
He looked up at me.
“I know what you’re going to ask, Mike. I’ve been wanting to say this for weeks. Terry O’Brien and I were friends. That’s all. When I re
alized that my two best friends were falling in love, I couldn’t have been happier. I knew that at least something really good came out of all this. I may not be physically at your wedding, Mike, but there’ll be no one more deeply there in spirit. Does that answer your question?”
What a scene. Now the two of us had liquid running down our cheeks, and neither one of us was ashamed of it. A couple of tough guys, right?
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
While Mr. McKedrick called the police to report that “someone” had shot a man in front of their house, I used my cell phone to wake Mr. Devlin with the most shocking news he had heard since this odyssey had begun. John was alive.
“How shall we handle it, Mr. Devlin? Do you want to notify Angela Lamb? And, of course, Mr. Santangelo.”
He thought for a moment before coming back.
“No, Michael. Neither one. I want you to be at Judge Gafni’s courtroom at nine tomorrow morning. We’ve got to tie this up with no loose ends. Here’s what I want you to do.”
At exactly nine the next morning, Judge Gafni’s bailiff, Keiran O’Toole, called “All rise.” The judge took his place on the bench. Mr. Devlin and myself were at defense counsel’s table and a very hyped up and totally in the dark Angela Lamb took her accustomed position at prosecution’s table.
The judge looked in our direction first.
“Mr. Devlin, you’re the one who called for this session. I’ve displaced several other matters on my docket. I trust this is worth it.”
Mr. Devlin rose to his feet.
“Oh, I think you’ll call this a most extraordinary day, Judge. I have a motion and a witness.”
“I’m all ears, Mr. Devlin.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. My motion is for an immediate dismissal of the charge against Peter Santangelo.”
That dropped Angela’s jaw at least half an inch. Her head spun toward Mr. Devlin fast enough to give her whiplash. Whatever her flaws, lack of a quick mind was not one of them.
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